Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses and apartments that were previously illegal to build.
Decisions where Bishop sided with the council
- Adelaide Road will be part of the centre city zone
- The walkable catchment will be 15 minutes
- Smaller character precincts
- The Johnsonville train is a train [“mass rapid transit”]
- Ten-minute walking catchments around all train stations
- No setback requirements for townhouses
- Hay Street, Hania Street and Moir Streets will be zoned for high density
Decisions where Bishop sided with the independent hearings panel:
- Kilbirnie will be zoned for high density
- Every heritage removal is rejected
Other links:
I love this
These streets were all minor exceptions where the IHP had allowed weird density exceptions because the residents were rich and good at arguing and gave lots of reasons why their street was different to all the streets. The council rejected these exemptions, and Bishop agreed.
Ok but can our water infrastructure support this? To be very clear more housing, good. Sewerpocalypse, bad.
Not currently, I’d guess - but it won’t be clear where until it’s too late. But it’ll be just another job on the pile.
Of course, apartments don’t all spontaneously become active at once, too, so half the time we’ll probably get away with it, but I suspect somewhere along the way we’re bound to have an awkward moment
Overall seems like a pretty good result. Disappointing that the heritage buildings will still be protected, but sounds like that was rejected on technicalities rather than due to any desire to retain those buildings.
